Jonah and Mallory are at a breaking point. Mallory’s addiction to him is ruining their fragile relationship. Can Jonah save him? Or is it too late?

Mallory was getting weak. Not just physically, but mentally. I could sense it in him, the way a dog could smell cancer in a sick person’s body. The more I fed, the weaker he became.

His blood started thinning.

It was becoming…dissatisfying. I needed more and more of it to keep my mind clear, and he happily gave it to me. It was starting to piss me off, the way he was acting.

He had completely lost his ability to say no. His food supply was running out. I kept an eye on his ever-dwindling stacks of canned food and boxes of dried goods.

After two months of us staying here, there wasn’t much left. He didn’t have time to plan for this, for us hiding out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t anticipate what would happen to him, to his mind, to his body, after letting me feed on him day after day after day for weeks.

I worried about him.

I was killing him, and he didn’t care. That, bothered me.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He was sitting in front of the fire, huddled up, blanket wrapped around him. Pale, tired, dark circles under his now dull eyes. They went from chocolate-brown to almost black. No shine to them at all now. They’re flat. Like he’s lost his spark somehow.

I was killing him.

A part of me reveled in it. It found great joy in eating him alive, slowly. Day by day by day by day. It was that dark part, the one that took over when I blacked out. It spoke to me all the time now.

Sometimes the whispers got louder and louder until they were deafening and I couldn’t even think straight. I could think…but it was difficult to concentrate.

I sat on the floor by the fire, digging my nails into the wood panels, slowly scratching parallel lines into it. Scratching in time with the scratching noises inside my head. They were rhythmic, like something was digging into my skull with a rake. I couldn’t make them stop, so I just played along with it, like a strange avant garde song that no one could hear but me.

“What are you drawing?” Mallory asked, leaning over to get a better look at it.

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Looks like stick-men though. Doesn’t it? Like a whole pack of them running around on all fours, playing dog or something.”

“Yeah, it kind of does.” He chuckled and it turned into a cough– raspy, dry, edging on painful.

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“You smell sick.”

“Just tired is all.” He yawned, sat back in the chair, closed his eyes.

I sighed. “Mal, we–” We need to get out of here. You’re dying.

His head dropped forward, chin on chest, and then he jerked his head back, awake, and blinked several times, trying to keep his eyes open.

“You should lie down. You aren’t well.”

No. Kill him. Eat him whole. Finish it already! End his misery.

“Shut up,” I murmured to the voices.

They are getting so loud now. Why are they so loud?

“Hmm? Did you say something?”

“No.”

I stood and stretched, the vertebrae in my back popped into place. A few of them were wiggling loose, like baby teeth. Felt like they’d pop off once the news ones finished growing in.

“Your back OK?” he asked, voice soft, meek, worried. Not his normal tone at all.

“It’s fixing itself. Almost done now.”

“Are you sure?”

I sighed. Annoyed.

“What?”

“You sound like an abused girlfriend. Stop it.”

“What? How?”

“Don’t talk to me that way.”

“What way should I speak to you then?”

“Normally. Like you used to.”

“And what way is that exactly?”

“The normal way.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Just…never-mind. OK? Just ignore me.”

He sighed and shuffled to the bed. The moon shone through the window in the cabin’s tiny kitchen area. The snow piled up on the outside ledge. The snowbanks were hip-deep and rising.

There was a small herd of deer roaming the woods still, I could hear their hooves crunching in the snow as they ate tree bark to stave off starvation until spring came.

The other woodland critters were in a deep winter slumber Wouldn’t be hard to find them, dig them out of burrows, bite off their heads, bathe in their hot blood as it steamed in the frozen air. It sounded so good right about now, I could almost taste it.

“You’re drooling.” He pointed at my chin.

I wiped it off with the back of a hand and rubbed it on my jeans.

“Are you hungry?” he asked and held out an arm, rolled up the sleeve of his sweater. It was covered in bite marks, bruises in the shape of fingers- thumb prints dotted around the half-circle teeth marks. Some scabbed, some still raw wounds.

He enjoyed it, the rougher I got with him. It really turned him on. I didn’t like that. Not at all. He was too used to it. There was no fear left, nothing to flavor his blood. Not that there was much left of his blood now. Not after I fed from him for so long without him eating properly.

“You can feed if you want to. It’s time for it anyways.”

My lips twitched. “Fine.”

“Do it like you did last time. It felt so good. I loved it.”

The last time I fed, he begged me to bite his leg, on the inner thigh, high up, near his crotch.

I made a face. I didn’t want to do that. But…he really wanted me to. I could see it. His eyes were hungry for pleasure. Even if his body was weak, he still wanted to feel good.

He was addicted to me.

And it was all my fault.

I couldn’t say no. This was my doing after all.

I didn’t really want to do it, but I had to. I had to take care of his ever-growing need to have me feed from him.

He was aroused before I even pulled his pants off. He didn’t even bother putting on boxers anymore. His hygiene was getting sloppy. I couldn’t recall the last time he took a bath even. His brown hair was getting shaggy and oily. Dirt under his nails. Stubble was at the point where it was starting to grow into a beard. He was always clean shaven, and well groomed. But not now. Now he smelled of sweat and dirt. He didn’t bring enough soap or shampoo or deodorant.

He didn’t bring enough of anything at all.

I stood there, an ache in my jaw. A black hole in my heart. I wanted him, just as much as he wanted me. But…he didn’t taste right anymore. Something was really wrong here.

“Jonah, please. Stop teasing me.”

I looked at him.

He was hard. The tip of his cock was wet.

There was a word for that…couldn’t remember it though. Too embarrassed to ask. Not like I’d really need to know. It wasn’t as though I needed sex anymore. I haven’t had the urge once since I changed. Not since IT happened. My only drive now was feeding. Nothing else existed. My body only craved blood. Not food, not sex, not cuddles and conversations and laughing in the sunlight. Just blood.

My normal everyday bodily functions stopped. I assumed that it was because I was mostly dead. Only fluid coming out of me now was that black tarry sludge that runs in my veins.

“Jonah. Come on,” he put a hand out. “I can’t wait much longer.”

I took his hand and walked over to the bed.

He was breathing shallow, fast, hips slowly raising and lowering sensually as I climb onto him, up his legs. He was panting, eyes closed.

“Yes please. There. Right there.” He guided my head down to this thigh. My face brushed against his stiff hard on. He gasped. “Bite me there. Bite me!” Both his hands on my head, digging into my hair, shoving my face towards it.

“Just a bite. Just one. Please, please!” he was shivering, covered in cold sweat. He smelled of sex and desperation, nausea and arousal. Desire and hunger.

“Stop it!” I slapped his hands away, jumped off the bed. Paced. Angry. Red tingeing my vision. “The fuck is wrong with you? That would seriously hurt you. I don’t remember a lot, but I do know that isn’t something a living person would want. At all.”

“Jonah, please. I need it. I need you. I just…if you don’t do it, it hurts. My body aches for your teeth to sink into it. For your tongue to probe the wound as you suck on it and drink your fill.”

I grimaced.

“That is so messed up.”

“You didn’t mind it before.”

“Yeah, well I do now. This has gone too far. We need to stop, before you die.”

“I can’t stop. I can’t. I need you. I needthis.”

“No. You don’t. Not like that. You aren’t thinking clearly. This isn’t right. I won’t do it.”

“Jonah, please.”

“No.”

“Please!” he begged, eyes brimming with tears.

“Your desperation is disgusting.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I don’t like it. Stop it.”

“I can’t. Please Jonah, I’ll do anything, anything.” He got on his knees in front of me, grabbed my legs and sobbed. “Please!”

“Get off of me,” I said and shoved him away with a foot. “I don’t like this. It doesn’t feel right.”

He needed his fix. Needed it bad. If I didn’t feed off him soon, his withdrawal would get worse. He’d start throwing up. He couldn’t afford to lose any more bodily fluids. And I didn’t care. I didn’t want this. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t. There had to be another way.

“Do it!” he shouted. “Fucking do it already!”

“No.”

He stood on shaking legs.

“Fine, then I’ll make you,” he said and charged at me, with strength I didn’t know he had left, and knocked me to the ground. Before I could stop him he shoved his forearm into my mouth, forced it wide open.

I bit down instinctively. Harder than I would’ve if I had willingly done it myself.

I didn’t want to, didn’t really need to feed right now, not like he needed me to.

He was desperate. Dying. But my body didn’t care. It did what it always does, and fed on blood. I grabbed his arm and swallowed, ran my tongue across the bite. Digging into the deep wells my teeth made in his flesh.

“Oh shit. Yes. Yes!” He shuddered, moaned in pleasure.

His blood was so thin, so watery. I spat a mouthful of it out in disgust. Tried to get the taste out of my mouth. But it didn’t work. It lingered. It tasted like death.

It was worse than those people the lab fed me. Much worse.

Because it was his, and he didn’t used to taste like this.

I was killing him. Slowly. And I hated it. I hated myself for doing it to him.

I didn’t care at first. I didn’t care as long as I had a full belly. It made the pain stop. But now, feeding gave me a different kind of pain altogether.

It hurt my heart.

Mal sighed in bliss, rolled onto his back on the floor, stared at the ceiling while he lay there naked.

There was a wet spot on my shirt. I touched it and looked at my hand. The puddle was white and slimy and warm to the touch, but swiftly cooling.

I knew what it was. He came. I bit him and he climaxed. I could smell it, bitter and salty, where it was my shirt. I stood, wiped it off in disgust with a towel.

“Jesus Mal, you are so fucked up now.”

“Mmm…” he said. His eyes dilated, hand limp on his belly, all muscles relaxed, breathing low and slow. He was high. So very high and like all junkies, the high stopped being as intense, and wore off faster the longer he did his drug of choice.

He needed more and more of it to get the same effect as that first hit, that first flying high he got from it.

Me?

I couldn’t drink his blood any more. Not with him like this. It was diluted skim milk. Drinking his thinned blood was like chugging a gallon of milk flavored water.

It was churning in my stomach.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

I made a face in disgust and went to the kitchen.

The last can of food was open, half eaten, on the table. Ravioli, and not even the meat kind.

He needed meat. Badly. He needed protein and iron and all that stuff that is in meat. He was malnourished, and anemic.

I cleaned up the remains he left. He didn’t even heat his food up anymore, just ate straight from the can. I threw out the piles of dirty paper plates and pop cans. I cleaned up, just to do something so that I didn’t have to think about anything for a bit.

“Hey, where are you?” he asked dreamily.

“In here.”

He shuffled over, clutching his arm where I had wounded him. Thin pink water slipped through his fingers, splatted on the floor.

“Gross.”

“What?”

“Your blood is too thin. I can’t feed from you like this. You’re diluted. It hurts my stomach.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“You need to eat. Your body needs protein, and your food supply is all out. It’s making you weak Mal. It’s not good.”

What I didn’t say, what I couldn’t bring myself to say, was that there was something else off about him now. Not just his behavior, but the fact that I knew, on an instinctive level, that he shouldn’t even be able to stand, let alone be conscious right now with his blood so thin. And yet, he was.

He wasn’t even shaking at the moment. He was mellow, relaxed, he felt good. Looked like the pain from the bite didn’t even register.

I did something to him by only feeding on him like this. I wasn’t just killing him, I was slowly changing him. And one day, he’d wake up and be just like me. I hated that. I didn’t want him to suffer. Not like this.

He swayed drunkenly on his feet, grabbed and clung to my arm. My skin twitched at his touch.

For some reason I didn’t want him to touch me.

His sick body was repulsive.

I gritted my teeth, pulled his fingers off one by one.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

He looked at me, confused. Hurt.

“What did I do? Is it really that bad with me?”

“Is what bad?”

“The sex.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The sex. You bite me, get me off. You get pleasure from it. It’s your way of being intimate with me now.”

“No. It’s not. It’s what keeps me alive, keeps my mind somewhat in one piece. It’s…” I knew the words. They were there, at the tip of my tongue. What were they?

“It’s what Jonah?” he asked and sat down at the table. He suddenly sounded so tired, so soul weary.

He was my Mallory. My. Mallory. I had to take care of him. I had to fix this.

“I’m fine. Really. I just need to eat,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face. The high was already leaving him. It left him drained, tired, aching.

“There isn’t any food left. You ate it all. We’ve been here for two months. You didn’t stock up for an entire winter. We weren’t supposed to stay here this long.”

“Oh…”

“You don’t sound worried.”

He shrugged. “Should I be?”

“You need to eat. You’re not thinking right, and you are seriously creeping me out.”

“Sorry about that. Can’t help it I guess.”

“Mal, those scientist guys, when they took us from your place? They helped you kick the cravings after you went through withdrawal, right?”

“Not really. They let me go cold turkey and sweat it out for a while. Then after a few weeks they said I was good to go back to work. They monitored me, but assured me that I was fine. I went about a month and a half without thinking about you, or what they might have done to you. And then I overheard a conversation. They were talking about you. I knew it was you, even though they never said your name. I just knew somehow that you were that exact test subject number. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did.

“After that, I became obsessed. I had to see you again. I had to know what they did to you. I had to get you someplace safe. I found out where you were being held, and all I could think of was getting you the hell out of there. I knew what they were doing to you. The experiments were inhumane. I couldn’t let them hurt you like that any longer. I took a big risk, bribed some people, made my way in to the high security wing, where they were keeping you. When I found the room you were in my heart leapt, I was so happy I felt like crying. Then I opened the door and your condition was… unspeakable. It was horrible, what they did to you. It pissed me off. So much.”

“That bad huh?”

“Yes. You know, I did something, after I broke you out. That’s why we had to go on the run. I don’t know what they’d do if they found me.”

“What did you do?”

“I found the lead researchers that were conducting vivisections on you.”

The way he said it made my stomach sink. I felt cold. Like I swallowed a huge block of ice. I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“That did you do Mal?”

“I gave them a piece of their own medicine. Let them know what it felt like to be conscious and cut open. T-incisions are quite painful. Cutting through the belly muscle is what really got them screaming though.” He smiled viciously. “It was so satisfying.”

I stared at him.

“Are you serious?”

“If I was, what would you do? It’s not like you haven’t killed people. You’ve killed more than I can count. And you weren’t exactly kind about it. Those weren’t mercy killings. You’ve ripped people’s throats out with your own teeth.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“I did it to survive. I did it to eat. Not for revenge. At the time I wasn’t anything more than a bloodthirsty animal. It was all instinct. No words, no thoughts. Nothing but urges. I couldn’t think until after I fed. And by then, it was too late.”

“There are plenty of animals in the world that commit revenge murder. Apes, dolphins, whales and so on and so on and so on.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“Who are you to judge? Huh? You didn’t see what they did to you. You have no idea how bad it was. So shut the hell up.”

I turned my back to him. He was right. Of course he was right.

I had no right to say what I did. I was just as bad, if not worse than him. I was the real monster here, not him. If I hadn’t tracked him down after IT happened, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“Everything.”

I needed to make this right. I had to help him. He needed red meat. It would make his blood taste better. It would cure his current condition, make it tolerable to be near him again.

I hadn’t been up for long. The winter nights here were longer. I liked that. I could stay awake more, enjoy more of the day. Night. Whatever. I had plenty of time to find something for him to eat.

“I’m going out,” I said abruptly.

“Why? Where would you even go? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

He sounded like a confused child. He was rubbing his temples.

“Headache?”

“Yes.”

“Come here, sit down by the fire.”

I guided him to the chair, wrapped him back up in a thick blanket.

“Stay here. Keep warm. I’ll be back soon. I gotta get you more food. Eating will take care of your headache. Besides, if you don’t eat soon, you’ll die.”

“Death wouldn’t be so bad,” he murmured. “As long as I was with you.”

In a way, he was right. At this point, death would be welcome. Too much pain, too much suffering. All of it? My fault.

His current state was because of me, because of what I did when I had no control over my actions. I had to get him meat. I had to fix his blood– before I got extremely hungry again. Before I forgot that Mallory was my friend. Was/Is my lover…and that we could’ve done more with each other’s bodies if I was still alive.

His addiction to me, to the darkest parts of me, to the abyss of my soul, would devour us both whole, and leaving nothing but the blackest depths of despair behind.

“I’ll be back soon. Stay warm.”

“All right. Hey, Jonah?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

I stepped out into the crisp winter air. The moon was full, the snow bright. It was easy to smell everything now. Must be the cold.

The wind was picking up, it was bitter and biting. Snow was falling, heavy flakes audibly hitting the snowbanks and the trees. Blanketing the world in a hush of quiet death.

The cold and the heavy snowfall slowed me down a bit, but I didn’t let that stop me. I had to find something for him to eat.

It took me an hour or so of hunting to run down and kill a deer. A straggler, but not so sick that the meat and blood were bad. I ran, leapt onto it, ripped its throat open with my razor-sharp teeth. It made an awful baying noise when I tore off its flesh. It’s legs spasmed and kicked as I drank my fill of its lifeblood.

It didn’t really fill me up, not like Mal’s blood ever did, but it took the edge off.

It felt like I had a day or two before I’d start to lose myself again. The fear of what I would do to him once I blacked out and lost control spurred me on through the heavy snowfall.

I dragged the deer carcass away from the kill zone, covered the bloody snow; unsure if it would block out the scent, but instinct told me to do it, so I did anyways.

I grew my nails out, as long as they would go, the length of a folding pocket knife blade. They were so sharp, they easily unzipped the deer hide from the flesh.

I dumped the hide about a mile downwind from the cabin, along with the head and guts. I ripped the tongue out and chewed on it while I sliced off hunks of meat from the sides, haunches and legs. Then I walked back with a huge armload of dripping meat.

I planned on taking care of the blood trail in the snow after I cooked the venison and made Mal eat it. I could easily freeze the rest by leaving it on the shaded side of the cabin. It’d be enough for at least a few weeks.

It would be enough.

I was so focused on feeding the one who feeds me, that I didn’t notice it at first.

I didn’t notice how the annoying voices in my head got stranger, more guttural, more animalistic, louder. There were more of them, at least a dozen different voices fighting for room in my head.

I got within half a mile of the cabin, downwind, and something smelled awful. My mind immediately flashed to when I sliced my throat open with the smashed piece of porcelain sink at Mal’s apartment. Thick black sludge for blood. Crude oil in my veins.

Distracted by the foul odor, and unable to see much ahead of me due to the heavy snowfall, I tripped on a sink hole in the snow. The meat flew out of my hands. Wet chunks slapped onto the white crust of the snow bank.

“That wasn’t there before. What the hell?”

I pulled myself up, and saw that it wasn’t a melted sinkhole, it was a tunnel. It was dug out by clawed hands, up from under the earth.

Oh. Shit.

A conversation from months ago popped into my head:

“They’re like ants Mallory! They’re the workers and SHE is the queen.”

I shivered and stared at the black pit at the bottom of the hole.

My breathing stopped.

I went still.

I could FEEL them, like maggots burrowing in my head. They were near. HER brood. They found me.

They’ve never been this close before.

Voices, so many voices, visions of what they were doing slammed into my mind, drowning out my eyesight in terrifying flashes. They were in the cabin. They had Mallory. They were dragging him outside into the freezing night air, fighting others that wanted to eat him. But, they weren’t allowed to do that. SHE wanted him alive.

The wind started howling, blowing snow around in a thick sheet of white. I could hear them running over the snowbanks, dragging something away from the cabin.

“Mallory!” I shouted and ran to the cabin, stumbling in the multiple foot and hand prints they left in the snow. The tracks made by people running on all fours, like animals.

The door was ripped off, hanging by a hinge, creaking in the wind. Everything inside was shredded. There were bite marks on the furniture. Bloody streaks on the floor. It was his blood. I could smell it.

Where were they? Where did they go?

I rushed out, looking for him, panicked. They ran off before I could get close. They sensed me, the same way that I felt their presence.

I was out hunting for longer than I had thought. I took too long. They must’ve been sitting here in the tunnel for weeks, waiting for us to separate so that they could get their filthy claws on him.

“Mallory!” The roar of my voice echoed through the empty winter night. He was gone.

My Mallory was gone.

I had just gotten him back, gotten myself back, and they took him from me.

I had to find him. I had to get him back. I had to fix this.

I growled as rage took over. My teeth and nails lengthened to razor-sharp points, my muscles bunched and grew stronger as I drew on the power of the blood in my belly.

The world was tinted red. Anger seared my veins, heated me up to the boiling point. I screamed in rage. A primal, fierce sound.

They took him.

They took him!

THEY TOOK HIM!

Kill.

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

KILL THEM ALL!

Tear them apart, set their tar blood on fire, crack open their rib cages and rip their hearts out and devour them. Devour them all!

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About Cassie Carnage

Horror connoisseur. She who types too fast. Lover of cats and monsters. You can find her debut horror novel, WE ARE ALL MONSTERS here: bit.ly/waam11
Her upcoming vampire novel series, Addicted to the Abyss Volumes 1 and 2 will be out late 2017.